𝐒𝐈𝐋𝐄𝐍𝐓 𝐁𝐎𝐘

ᴄʜᴀᴘᴛᴇʀ ꜰɪᴠᴇ

𝟛

❆ ❆ ❆

Somewhere close ahead, Torsten knew, the Fist of the First Men loomed above, home to three hundred black brothers of the Night's Watch, armed, mounted, and waiting. The Old Bear had sent out other scouts besides the Halfhand, and surely Jarman Buckwell or Thoren Smallwood would have returned by now with word of what was coming down out of the mountains.
Mormont will not run, Torsten thought. He is too old and he has come too far. He will strike, and damn the numbers. One day soon, he would hear the sound of warhorns, and see a column of riders pounding down on them with black cloaks flapping and cold steel in their hands. Three hundred men could not hope to kill a hundred times their number, of course, but Torsten did not think they would need to. He need not slay a thousand, only one. Mance is all that keeps them together.
Instead of the clash of steel and the thrum of arrows taking flight, Torsten heard only the soft crunch of frozen crust beneath the garron's hooves.
In silence they circled round to the south slope, where the approach was easiest. It was there at the bottom that Torsten saw the dead horses, sprawled at the base of the hill, half buried in the snow. Entrails spilled from the belly of the animals like frozen snakes, and their legs were gone. Wolves, was Torsten's thought, but that was wrong. Wolves eat their kill.
More garrons were strewn across the slope, legs twisted grotesquely, blind eyes staring in death. The Wildlings crawled over them like flies, stripping them of saddles, bridles, packs, and armor, and hacking them apart with stone axes.
Outside the ringwall Wildlings dismounted to squeeze through a crooked gap in the stones. The carcass of a shaggy brown garron was impaled upon the sharpened stakes the Old Bear had placed inside every entrance. He was trying to get out, not in. There was no sign of a rider.
Inside was more, and worse. Torsten had never seen pink snow before. The wind gusted around him, pulling at his heavy sheepskin cloak. Ravens flapped from one dead horse to the next. Are those wild ravens, or our own? Torsten could not tell. He wondered where poor Samwell was now. And what he was.
A crust of frozen blood crunched beneath the heel of his boot. The Wildlings were stripping the dead horses of every scrap of steel and leather, even prying the horseshoes off their hooves. A few were going through packs they'd turned up, looking for weapons and food. Torsten passed one of Chett's dogs, or what remained of him, lying in a sludgy pool of half frozen blood.
A few tents were still standing on the far side of the camp, and it was there they found Mance Rayder. Beneath his slashed cloak. Jarl was with him, and Harma the Dogshead.
The look Mance gave Torsten was grim and cold. He'd paid Torsten no mind when they'd spoken earlier. "What happened to your face?" He asked the young bastard boy.

"Orell tried to take his eye out." Tormund said.

"It was him I asked. Has he lost his tongue? Perhaps he should, so spare us further lies." Styr the Margnar dew a long knife.

"The boy might see clearer with one eye, instead of two." He grumbled.

"Would you like to keep your eye, Torsten?" Asked the King beyond the Wall. "If so, tell me how many they were. And try and speak the truth this time, Bastard of the Wall." Torsten's throat was dry. His eyes held Jon's, who looked just as nervous.

"What..." Torsten begun.

"The what is plain enough. Your brothers died. The question is, how many?" Said Mance. You must not balk, whatever is asked of you, he reminded himself. The words stuck in his throat, but he made himself say it.

"There were three hundred of us." He said truthful.

"Us?" Mance said sharply.

"Them. Three hundred of them." Torsten quickly corrected himself. "Two hundred from Castle Black, and one hundred from the Shadow Tower."